Literacy

A compound sentence is made of two simple sentences joined by a conjunction. A complex sentence is made of a simple sentence and a dependent, or subordinate, clause (has a subject and a verb but does not express a complete thought.
English Grammar 101 - Clauses, Lesson 9: Complex and Compound-Complex Sentences. Before we arrived at school, we met up at the coffee house across the street.

We met up at the coffee house across the street [independent] + before we arrived at school (dependent) = complex sentence (Before we arrived at school),[we met up at the coffee house across the street.] Clara, who has an incredible voice, was asked to sing the school song. Clara was asked to sing the school song [independent] + who has an incredible voice (dependent) = complex sentence [Clara, (who has an incredible voice), was asked to sing the school song.]

The book that I had found disappeared after Julia returned it to me.
SMART Teaching Strategies. Cohesion in texts includes the use of connectives and conjunctions and more sophisticated texts effectively use a variety of referring words, substitutions, word associations and text connectives to improve the flow of the writing.

It refers to the use of linguistic devices to join sentences together, including conjunctions, reference words, substitution and lexical devices such as repetition of words (or synonyms), collocations and lexical groups. Students need to connect ideas in logical ways in order to display and build precise factual knowledge, develop their ideas to persuade more convincingly and express more complex relationships in their speech and writing. Conjunctions and connectives are cohesive devices that work to improve the flow of the writing. Conjunctions operate within sentences and connectives relate to meaning between sentences.
Sentence Structure Games for Middle School.

In middle school, students learn the different types of sentences: simple, compound, complex and compound-complex.

They also learn the components needed for each type of sentence, such as independent clauses, coordinating conjunctions and subordinate clauses. While most students learn to recognize sentences and sentence components by diagramming, sentence structure games can be more fun for your class and allow students to learn from each other. Sentence Scramble Games Sentence scramble games help teach students different types of sentences and sentence structure by having them put together a sentence rather than diagram it. Divide your class into several groups, and hand each group a baggy containing cutout words. Class Team Jeopardy Games. Chart of English Language Roots - PrefixSuffix.com. OnlineReader : Fantastic Mr Fox. Down in the valley there were three farms.

The owners of these farms were rich men. They were also nasty men. All three of them were as nasty and mean as any men could be. Their names were Farmer Boggis, Farmer Bunce and Farmer Bean.
Effective literacy practice years 5-8 / Planning for my students' needs / Literacy Online / English - ESOL - Literacy Online website - English - ESOL - Literacy Online. Sounds and WordsSupport for teaching phonological awareness and spelling in years 1–8.

This resource outlines what teachers need to know and what children need to learn at each of the different year bands. Effective Literacy Practice in Years 1 to 4Technical skills for writing: Spelling: this section provides information on the knowledge strategies and awareness students require in year 1–4 as they move towards accurate spelling. This includes knowledge and use of: phonemic awareness, letter sound relationships, orthographic patterns and the morphological structure of written English.

Effective Literacy Practice in Years 5 to 8Technical skills for writing: Spelling: this section provides information on the knowledge strategies and awareness students require in year 5–8 to develop spelling expertise. Allcock, J. (2002). Exploring Language: Words and meanings This section of the resource provides information on word meanings and the relationships among these meanings.
English Online / English - ESOL - Literacy Online website.

If the tense of each underlined verb expresses the time relationship accurately, write S (satisfactory). If a shift in tense is not appropriate, write U (unsatisfactory) and make necessary changes. In most cases with an inappropriate shift, there is more than one way to correct the inconsistency. Reading the sentences aloud will help you recognize differences in time.
MyRead – Home. Stepping Out Literacy - Steps Resources - The Department of Education. Tar Heel Reader. How misused modifiers can hurt your writing - Emma Bryce. When to use apostrophes - Laura McClure. To learn more about this punctuation mark, start by reading the two Grammar Girl posts here and here.

To understand the difference between grammar “rules” and grammar “style” choices, you’ll want to look at a style guide or two. Below are the websites for several major English language style guides: The Economist Style Guide Chicago Manual of Style Oxford University Press Associated Press MLA. When to use "me", "myself" and "I" - Emma Bryce. Verb Tenses Exercises & Answers. Dolch Word Search Puzzles - Reading Worksheets, Spelling, Grammar, Comprehension, Lesson Plans. BoomWriter - Teacher Login. List of Adverbs. Home. Catalog your books online. Most literate nation in the world? Not the U.S., new ranking says.
(iStock) (Correction: Central Connecticut State University has released a corrected version of the rankings.

The U.S. moves up from 11th to 7th.) A new world ranking of countries and their literacy rates puts the United States at 7th. Who’s No. 1? Finland. The study, conducted by John W. Here are the rankings:
Literably Is An Excellent Reading Site — If Used With Caution. Reader Erika Chapman tipped me off to an excellent site called Literably. It allows students to read a text and have it automatically assessed for accuracy and words-per-minute speed. Plus, and this is what was most surprising to me, it also provides a fairly accurate indentification of student errors — in other words, what word they said instead of the word in the text.

You’re able to provide the student or parent a link to the recording. And it’s free. It’s extraordinarily easy to use. As I have already mentioned, the site seems remarkably accurate based on my testing, and I’ll have my students try it out later today.
Why is English so hard to learn?
The prime minister, David Cameron, wants more Muslim women in the UK to be taught English to reduce segregation between different linguistic communities and even limit the lure of extremism. Most of us who have tried it probably feel that learning a new language is difficult, even if that new language is similar to our own. So how difficult is it to learn English and especially if your first language is quite different? The difficulty of learning a new language will depend on how similar that language is to one you already know. Despite English speakers often rating certain languages as being particularly difficult – languages such as French, which indicate the gender of nouns with articles like le and la, and the Chinese writing system – there are similarities between these languages.

If you were to learn French you’d immediately recognise many words, because the English equivalents have French Latin roots, such as ballet or amiable.
Schools need advice on how to help students with reading difficulties. As students prepare to go back to school, it’s estimated that between 10% to 16% of those aged from five to 16 years will have reading difficulties such as dyslexia and inadequate comprehension skills. All teaching makes particular assumptions about how students tend to learn. For these students, regular literacy teaching will be insufficient. They need alternative teaching pathways. Despite numerous policies, such as the Literacy and Numeracy National Partnership, and the A$706.3 million spent between 2008-2014 on reading programs to support students, literacy underachievement continues to plague Australian education, suggesting that current interventions are not working for all students.

Teachers don’t necessarily know how to teach these children. The problem is not a lack of research about what works. School leaders are responsible for making definitive decisions about educational provision in their schools.
Why some kids can’t spell and why spelling tests won’t help. A couple of years ago, early one morning, I received an SMS advising “resadents to stay indoors because of a nearby insadent”. I was shocked by the spelling, as much as the message. Surely, I thought, if it was a real message then the spelling would be correct. Spelling matters. In a text message from a friend teeing up a night out “c u at 8” is fine - but in an emergency warning text from a government agency, I expect the spelling to be standard. But why is it that some people struggle with standard spelling?
English Grammar Lessons for Teachers and Students. Dictionary Stories — Wait, what?
Free English Worksheets. English Grammar Lessons for Teachers and Students. SMART Teaching Strategies. Sentences are key units for expressing ideas.

Students in Stage 1 are using sentence structure in their writing to compose longer texts that achieve the intended purpose.
Friday Fun Archive. Projects to Engage Middle School Readers. It's my fault. I'll admit it. During my eight years in the classroom, I ruined at least two amazing literary works by assigning horrifically dull reading projects.
NAPLAN 2010 Teaching Strategies. Spelling Poems: Poetry for Literacy Skills. Home. What Are Modifiers?
A modifier is a word, phrase, or clause which functions as an adjective or an adverb to describe a word or make its meaning more specific. Modifiers can play the roles of adjectives or adverbs.

The Top 50 Punctuation Errors. Gallery of Tattoo Fails with Grammar or Spelling Mistakes. Lessons Worth Sharing. Buffalo buffalo buffalo: One-word sentences and how they work - Emma Bryce. English Vocabulary. NoRedInk makes learning grammar fun and easy. Spellbee!
SpellBEE is a new kind of spelling activity.
EnglishCentral. Play online, learn online and feed the hungry.

Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing. Summary: This handout is intended to help you become more comfortable with the uses of and distinctions among quotations, paraphrases, and summaries.
The Oatmeal - Comics. This is a grammar comic about the proper usage of who versus whom.
Texting’s Effect on Grammar is Debated. MONDAY AUGUST 13, 2012, 9:26 AM BY ELYSE TORIBIO STAFF WRITER www.northjersey.com If the average American teen sends a staggering 3,000 text messages a month, you can be sure that there are more than a few letters, commas and apostrophes missing.